"She's a FIGHTER"

"Damn... that Punch!"

                    Clenched fists... sweat dripping down my face, my eyes focused only on the one thing in front of me, the one person in front of me, about to knock me down. He was big-built, almost 7 feet tall with heavy fists and a huge belly. He shadowed over me like a giant blocking the view behind him. His eyes were deep, narrowed and filled with anger as if he were trying to lift off heavy weighted thoughts inside his mind, thinking that it would bring him peace if he ended this. It was a dark and narrow alley. Places like this were always chosen to keep all the street fighting away from the cops. Before I knew it, he took a hard swing at me and I fell to the floor. It was the final round. The people watching were going insane, shouting their guts out for me to get back up and fight, like I was some sort of hero who if lost this fight, would break all of their hearts and they then turn to the next best thing: the winner.

That's how it is. That's how it always is. No one understands what this means anymore. No one cares about what you fight for. It's all a game. A game where you either win and become everyone's hero, the alpha, the 'feared one' and earn your respect on the streets or you lose and lose everything with it. There's no moral, no 'Second bests'...just a fight to the end, a beat-up ass on the floor and a winner.

The crowd was getting wilder. I could hear the faint noises of their screams through the loud ringing in my ears. My neck and the entire right side of my face burned. It wasn't something that I couldn't take. I could easily get up and fight back... but for some reason, I just couldn't. I saw a faint, blurry silhouette of the huge person that knocked me down taking in his air of glory... raising his hands as if he'd won. My mind slowly faded into my own thoughts. The thoughts that ran deep... deep enough to keep me from getting up. All the incidents of my past began flashing before my eyes at full speed. I couldn't keep track of anything. It felt like every memory was taking away a piece of me and it was killing me inside. Closing my eyes, it felt like I was moments away from exploding. Tears began to rush down my face involuntarily. I didn't want to think of this. I didn't want to feel like this. I didn't want to cry anymore. I was sick and tired of feeling this way. I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't let myself fall... not after all that's happened, not now! (I told myself).

I felt this sudden gush of energy. I found myself crawled up on the floor, shaking myself off of it. I got up, with narrowed eyes filled to the brim with tears. I focused all my pain and energy on the guy in front of me. The crowd went insane. They started shouting and screaming louder than before. As though realizing what happened, the man turned around to face me. The anger set back into his eyes almost instantly. He focused on me with narrow eyes as if provoking me to come forward. True to his expectation, I ran toward him. By now, I knew his style. I knew what I could expect from him. Evidently, expecting a knock-out punch from him, I ducked and knocked him off his feet until he fell face flat on the cold, wet floor. The people cheered. I wasn't done yet. I sat on his chest and threw punches after punches at his face....it seemed like every punch became a passage through which all the emotion and anger built inside me started flushing out. The anger and pain of every memory began to flow through every single punch. The crowd was now chanting my name in chorus.

"Rae! Rae! Rae!" as if that was really my name.

I came back to my senses; I found my hands bloody and shaking and a defeated man lying there on the floor, his expression hidden behind the blood on his face.

I got up. Felt like no winner at all. I picked my hoodie off the side of the floor, took the reward money from a woman gaping with shock right beside me and just walked toward the light and made my way out of that alley. The only feeling I felt, was being cold... stone cold.

As I walked home, I saw all the bright lights that lit up the small town. It was beautiful. Quite ironic, for everything else in this town was anything but that. The night's events didn't seem to bother me much. I wasn't even sorry for letting myself get carried away; or maybe knowing that I could let everything out, made the thought of it disappear. I reached home and was about to open the door. Before I could even open the door entirely, something jumps at me and I almost fall backward! It was Ice! Ice is my 3-year-old husky. He is a super special dog. It's almost as if he understands anything I say, just the way a human would. His left eye is green and the right one, hazel brown. His fur, ash grey with a smeared black line running from his forehead down his tail. He's a beauty. Sometimes I feel like he gets me better than any human possibly could. We've been best buds for a long time. I love him and I sure as hell know that he loves me back.